Evello’s name was there. Billy Mist’s name was there. In the very beginning. They were punks then but they showed promise. The guy in Brooklyn said you didn’t pick up the connections any more because most likely the boys had new assignments. They had been promoted. That was a long time ago so by now they should be kings. There were other names that I didn’t know, but before long I’d know. There were empty spaces where names should be but couldn’t be supplied and those were in the throne room. Nobody knew who the royalty was. They couldn’t even suspect.
Big? Sure, they were big. But then even the big ones would hear the word and their bigness would start to leak out all the holes. I was thinking about it and wondering if they had heard it yet when Mousie Basso came in.
Guys like Mousie you see around when there’s not too much light and never see around when the heat’s on. Guys like Mousie you see in the papers when the police pull in their dragnet at a time when there were no holes in the walls for them to duck into. In the faces of guys like Mousie you can tell the temperature of the underworld cauldron or read your popularity with the wrong people by the way they shy away or hang on to you.
From Mousie’s face I knew I was hot.
I knew, too, I wasn’t very popular.
Mousie took one look at me sitting there, shot a quick look at the door and would have been out if I hadn’t been reaching inside my coat for a smoke at the time. Mousie got white past the point of being pale when he saw where my hand was and when I gave him the nod to come over, he didn’t walk, he slunk.
I said, “Hello, Mousie,” and the corner of his mouth made a fast, fake smile and he slid into the booth hoping nobody had seen him.
He grabbed a nervous cigarette that didn’t do him a bit of good, shook out the match and flicked it under the table. “Look, Mr. Hammer, you and me ain’t got a thing to talk about. I ...”
“Maybe I like your company, Mousie.”
His lips got tight and he tried hard to keep from watching my hands. Half under his breath he said, “You ain’t good company to be seen with.”
“Who says?”
“Lots of people. You’re nuts, Mr. Hammer ...” He waited to see what would happen and when nothing did, said, “you go blowing off your stack like you been doing and you’ll be wearing a D.O.A. tag on your toe.”
“I thought we were friends, kid.” I bit into my sandwich and watched him squirm. Mousie wasn’t happy. Not even a little bit.
“Okay, so you did me a favor. That doesn’t make us that kind of buddies. If you want trouble you go find it by yourself. Me, I’m a peace-loving guy, I am.”
“Yeah.”
Mousie’s face sagged under the sarcasm. “So I’m a chiseler. So what? I don’t want shooting trouble. If I’m small potatoes that’s all I want to be. Nobody gets bumped for being small potatoes.”
“Unless somebody sees them talking to big potatoes,” I grinned at him.
It scared him, right down to his shoes. “Don’t ... don’t kid around with me, will you? You don’t need me for nothing. Besides which if you do I ain’t giving or selling. Lay off.”
“What did you hear, Mousie?”
His eyes were quick things that swept the whole room twice before they came back to me. “You know.”
“What?”
“You’re going to scramble some people.”
“What people.” I didn’t ask him. I told him to say it.
He whispered the word. “Mafia.” Then as if it had been a key he swallowed he spilled over with the things he had been holding down while his eyes bulged in his head. His hands grabbed the edge of the table and hung on while the butt he had started to smoke burned through the tablecloth. “You’re nuts. You went and got everybody hopped up. Wherever you go you’ll be poison. Is it true you got something on the wheels? You better clam if you have. That kind of stuff is sure to lead to trouble. Charlie Max and Sugar ...” The mouth stopped and stayed open.
“Say it, Mousie.”
Maybe he didn’t like the way I had edged forward. Maybe he saw the things that should have been written across my face.
The bulging eyes flattened out, sick. “They’re spending advance money along the Stem.”
“Moving fast?”
I could hardly hear his voice. “Covering the bars and making phone calls.”
“Are they in a hurry?”
“Bonus, probably.”
Mousie wasn’t the same guy who came in. He was the mouse, but a mouse who didn’t care any more. He was the mouse who spilled his guts to the cat about where the dog was and if the dog found out, he was dead. He reached for the remains of the cigarette, tried to drag some life into it and couldn’t make it. I shook a new one out of my pack and handed it to him. The light I held out was steady, but he couldn’t keep the tip of the butt in it. He got it going after a few seconds and stared into the flame of the lighter.
“You ain’t scared a bit, are you?” He looked at his own hands, hating himself. “I wish I was that way. What makes a guy like me, Mr. Hammer?”
I could hate myself too. “Guys like me,” I said.
The laugh came out his nose like he didn’t believe me. “One guy,” he said, “just one big guy and everybody gets hopped up. For anybody else, even the mayor, they wouldn’t even blink, but for you they get hopped up. You say you’re going to scramble and they make like a hillbilly feud. The word goes out and money starts passing hands. Two of the hottest rods in town combing the joints looking for you and you don’t even get bothered enough to stop eating. They know you, Mr. Hammer. Guess maybe everybody knows something about you. That’s why Charlie Max and Sugar Smallhouse got the job. They don’t know nothing about you. They’re Miami boys. You say you’re going to do something, you do it and always there’s somebody dead and it ain’t you. Now the word has it you’re going to scramble the top potatoes. Maybe you will and maybe you won’t. With anybody else I’d take bets on your side, only this time it’s different.”
He stopped and waited to see what I’d say. “It’s not so different.”
“You’ll find ouf.”
He saw my teeth through the smile and shuddered. It does funny things to some people. “The world still goes,” I said. “From now on to the end they’ll have to stay away from windows and doors. They’ll never be able to go out alone. Every one of the pack will have to keep a rod in his fist and wait. They’ll have to double check everything to make sure I won’t find out who they are and no matter how hard they try I’ll reach them. Their office boys’ll try to check me off but they’re like flies on the wall. I’m going to the top. Straight up. I’m finding out who they are and when I do they’re dead. I know how they operate ... they’re bad, but they know me and I’m worse. No matter where I find them, or when ... any time, any place ... that’s it. The top dogs, those are the ones I want. The slime who pull the strings in the Mafia. The kings, you understand? I want them.”
My grin got bigger all the time. “They’ve killed hundreds of people, see, but they finally killed the wrong dame. They tried to kill me and they wrecked my car. That last part I especially didn’t like. That car was hand built and could do over a hundred. And for all of that a lot of those top dogs are paying through the kiester starting now. That’s the word.”
Mousie didn’t say anything. He stood up slowly, his teeth holding his bottom lip to keep it up. He jerked his head in what was supposed to be a so long and slid out from behind the table. I watched him walk to the door, forgetting the sandwich that lay on top of the counter. He opened the door slowly, walked out to the sidewalk and turned east, not looking to either side of himself. When he had gone I got up myself, paid my bill and took the change to a phone booth.
Pat was home and still up. I said, “It’s me, pal. Velda told me you heard the news.”
He sounded a little far away. “You don’t have much sense, do you?”
“They’re looking for me. Two boys by the name of Charlie Max and Sugar Smallhouse.”
“They have reps.”
“So I hear. What kind?”
“Teamwork. Max is the one to watch. They’re killers, but Smallhouse likes to do it slow.”
“I’ll watch Max then. What else?”
“Charlie Max is an ex-cop. He’ll probably have a preference for a hip holster.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I slapped the receiver back on the hook. The dime plinked into the box and the gaping mouth of the thing laughed at me silently. Well, in a way it was a pretty big joke. The army of silent men couldn’t stay silent. I didn’t know them but they knew me. They were just like the rest: crumbs who knew how to play a one-sided game—but when they were playing somebody who could be twice as silent, twice as dirty and twice as quick they broke in the middle and started begging. Someplace in the city were people with names and some without names. They were organized. They had big money in back of them. They had political connections. They had everything it took to stay where they were except one thing and that was me with my own slab in a morgue. They knew what to expect from the cops and what to expect from the vast machine that squatted on the Potomac but they didn’t know what to expect from me. Already one guy had told them, a punk with crooked yellow teeth who had had a gun on me and lost it. Then they’d ask around if they didn’t already know and the stories they’d hear wouldn’t be pretty. The fear they handed out so freely to others they’d taste themselves, knowing that before long, if I was still alive, they’d have to chew the whole lump and swallow it.
At the cigarette counter I picked up a fresh deck of Luckies, went out into the air and headed for the Stem. Out there were the hunters spending advance money. Cold boys with reps who didn’t know the whole score. They knew the word was out and wanted to cut it off.
But they didn’t hear the whole word. Before the night was over they’d hear a lot of things that might make them want to change their minds. One of the things was the rest of the word. They’d find out the hunters were being hunted.
Just for the fun of it.
CHAPTER 8
The Globe gave me the information on Nicholas Raymond. It was an old clipping that Ray Diker dragged out for me and which wouldn’t have been printed at all if there hadn’t been an editorial tie-up. The press was hot on hit-and-run drivers and used his case to point up their arguments about certain light conditions along the bridge approaches.
Nicholas Raymond got it as he stepped into the street as the light changed and his body was flung through a store window. Nobody saw the accident except a drunk halfway down the block and the car was never tracked down. The only details about him were that he was forty-two years old, a small-time importer and lived in an apartment hotel in the lower Fifties.
I told Ray Diker thanks and used his phone to call Raymond’s old address. The manager told me in a thick accent that yes, he remembered Mr. Nick-o-las Raymondo, he was the fine man who always paid his bills and tipped like a gentleman extreme. It was too bad he should die. I agreed with him, poked around for some personal information and found that he was the kind nothing can be said about. Apparently he was clean.
Finding something on McGrath was easy. The papers carried the same stuff Velda had passed to me without adding anything to it. Ray made a couple calls downstairs and supplied the rest. Walter McGrath was a pretty frequent visitor to some of the gaudier night clubs around town and generally had a pretty chick in tow. A little persuasion and Ray managed to get his address. A big hotel on Madison Avenue. The guy was really living.
We sat there a few minutes and Ray asked, “Anything else?”
“Lee Kawolsky. Remember him?”
Ray didn’t have to go to his files for that. “Good boy, Mike. It was a shame he couldn’t follow through. Broke his hand in training and it never healed properly. He could have been a champ.”
“What did he do for a living after that?”
“Let’s see.” Ray’s face wrinkled in thought. “Seems like he bartended for Ed Rooney a bit, then he was doing a little training work with some of the other fighters. Wait a sec.” He picked up the phone again, called Sports and listened for a minute to the droning voice on the other end. When he hung up he had a question in his eyes.
“What’s the pitch, Mike?”
“Like what?”
His eyes sharpened a bit as they watched me. “Lee went to work for a private detective agency that specialized in supplying bodyguards for society brawls and stuff. One of his first assignments was sticking with a kid who was killed across the river a few days ago.”
“Interesting,” I said.
“Very. How about the story angle?”
“If I knew that I wouldn’t be here now. How did he die?”
“It wasn’t murder.”
“Who says?”
He picked up a pipe, cradled it in his hand and began to scrape the bowl with a penknife. “Killers don’t drive the same beer truck for ten years. They aren’t married with five kids and don’t break down and cry on the street when they’ve had their first accident.”
“You got a good memory, kid.”
“I was at the funeral, Mike. I was interested enough to find out what happened.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Not a one.”
I stood up and slapped my hat on. “Thanks for the stuff, Ray. If I get anything I’ll let you know.”
“Need any help?”
“Plenty. There’s three names you can work on. Dig up anything good and I’ll make it worth your while.”
“All I want is an exclusive.”
“Maybe you’ll get one.”
He grinned at me and stuck the pipe in his mouth. Ray wasn’t much of a guy. He was little and skinny and tight as hell with a buck, but he could get places fast when he wanted to. I grinned back, waved and took the elevator to the street.
Dr. Martin Soberin had his office facing Central Park. It wasn’t the world’s best location, but it came close. It took in a corner, was blocked in white masonry with Venetian shuttered windows and a very discreet sign that announced his residency. The sign said he was in so I pushed open the door while the chimes inside toned my arrival.
Inside it was better than I thought it would be. There was a neat, precise air about the place that said here was a prominent medical man suited to the needs of the upper crust, yet certainly within the financial and confidential range of absolutely anybody. Books lined the walls, professional journals were neatly stacked on the table and the furniture had been chosen and arranged to put any patient at ease. I sat down, started to light a cigarette and stopped in the middle of it when the nurse walked in.
Some women are just pretty. Some are just beautiful. Some are just gorgeous. Some are like her. For a minute you think somebody slammed one to your belly then your breath comes back with a rush and you hope she doesn’t move out of the light that makes a translucent screen out of the white nylon uniform.
But she does and she says hello and you feel all gone all over.
She’s got light chestnut hair and her voice is just right. She’s got eyes to go with the hair and they sweep over you and laugh because she knows how you feel. And only for a moment do the eyes show disappointment because somehow the cigarette gets lit as if she hadn’t been there at all and the smoke from my mouth smooths out any expression I might have let show through.
“The doctor in?”
“Yes, but he’s with a patient right now. He’ll be finished shortly.”
“I’ll wait,” I said.
“Would you care to step inside while I make out a card for you?”
I took a pull on the Lucky and let it out in a fast, steady stream. I stood up so I could look down at her, grinning a little bit. “Right now that would be the nicest thing I could think of, but I’m not exactly a patient.”
She didn’t change her expression. Her eyebrows went up slightly and she said, “Oh?”
“Let’s say I’ll pay the regular rates if it’s
necessary.”
The eyebrows came down again. “I don’t think that will be necessary.” Her smile was a quick, friendly one. “Is there any way I can help you?”
I grinned bigger and the smile changed to a short laugh.
“Please,” she said.
“How long will the doctor be?”
“Another half hour perhaps.”
“Okay, then maybe you can do it. I’m an investigator. The name is Michael Hammer, if it means anything to you. Right now I’d like to get some information on a girl named Berga Torn. A short while back Dr. Soberin okayed her for a rest cure at a sanitarium.”
“Yes. Yes, I remember her. Perhaps you’d better come inside after all.”
Her smile was a challenge no man could put up with. She opened the door, walked into the light again and over to a desk in the corner. She turned around, saw me standing there in the doorway and smoothed out her skirt with a motion of her hands. I could hear the static jump all the way across the room and the fabric clung even closer than it had.
“You’d be surprised how fast a person decides he really isn’t sick after all,” she said.
“What about the women patients?”
“They get sicker.” Her mouth pursed in a repressed laugh. “What are you thinking?”
I walked over to the desk and pulled up the straight-backed chair. “Why a dish like you takes a job like this.”
“If you must know, fame and fortune.” She pulled out a file case and began to thumb through the cards.
“Try it again,” I said.
She looked up quickly. “Truly interested?”
The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 2 Page 51